Halloween Swap completed!

It took me forever, but I finally finished up and mailed my Halloween Swap items!  I am pretty pleased with how everything turned out and I really really wish I had thought to take more pictures of everything individually, but I didn't so here is what I have.

So, I did a pillow cover, a cute little applique witch hat hoop, a QAYG open wide zipper pouch, 2 berry boxes, and then I added in some little Halloween goodies I picked up at Joann's.  I hope my partner likes it!

Here is a close up look at the hoop.

So, anyway...I am waiting for a package from my partner so as soon as I get that I will post a picture of it here!  I have been really busy with PTO and work so my posting will probably be pretty sporadic.  I do have a mini quilt swap that I am doing and I am going to do this quilt-a-long so I will post progress with those as I have a chance.

I am not a beginning quilter, but I am going to be making a lot of baby quilts for friends in the next few months and I LOVE this pattern so I am going to give it a go!

xoxo, Shelly

Sherbet Pips Quilt Completed

I started this quilt quite a long time ago.  I want to say it was in the fall last year even though I bought the fabric for it just after the fabric was released.  I managed to get 2 rows of the blocks done before I put it all away, but I was determined that it was going to be my first big project to complete when I got my sewing area all set up. 

Here is the full view.  It's actually a pretty big quilt.  Before I washed it up it was about 68" x 90".  I am sure it shrunk up a bit, but it's still a good size!

I had just a fun time making this one.  The top actually went together pretty quickly, it was the quilting that was very time consuming.  I decided the best way to quilt it would be a free motion, meandering design.  I ended spending about 7 hours over the course of 3 days quilting it on my Janome.  My hands were killing me and I have to say that I am very thankful for the cheap gardening gloves I found.  They have little rubber nubs on the fingers and they are perfect for machine quilting!  Actually, I think my sister gave them to me a couple years ago at my niece's garden themed birthday party. 

 Anywho...I love how it turned out and I am now no longer afraid of free motion so I am going to start practicing some different quilting designs to use on future projects.  This is the first one I am stoked to try out.  I just love the final look of the petals. I am sure I will have to use it on a small project before I have the nerve to test it out on something big.

I got pretty lucky that my backing fabric ended up matching the top perfectly.  I wanted a backing that I didn't have to piece so I looked at the wide backing fabric on Fabric.com and I ended up loving this one.  It's a swirly paisley print that also has houndstooth.  The pinks match perfectly so I was a happy quilter.  

I am a sucker for a pin dot binding and this pink is the perfect match as well as being just the right thing to offset how much of the Kona Ash that I used.  I love the pop of brighter pink around the edges.  I think it was just the perfect touch to finish it all up.  I did a wider binding than I usually do and I ended up really liking it more than the thinner so this may be my go-to binding size from now on.

Now that this project is completed I am working on a swap!  I haven't done a swap in a couple years now and I am excited to be taking part in this one.  It's a secret partner swap and it's for Halloween.  I will post more about that soon...

xoxo, Shelly

Vacation is almost over...

I am not quite ready to go back, but I am ready for the house to be quiet again!  I haven't gotten much done around here, but I was just planning to relax and read so it's all good.  I have sewed a bit and I managed to go to the movies yesterday.  I went to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  It was excellent.  Daniel Craig is brilliant as Mikael Blomkvist, actually, all the acting was superb.  I loved the book and the Swedish version of the movie was good too, but not having to read subtitles in this was made it better for me!  I am ready to read the book again, but I am going to wait until after the 1st of the year to start it.

I cheated and adjusted my Goodreads goal to 123 instead of 130.  I am only at 121 right now, but I may still be able to make it.  I think I am going to set my 2012 goal at 125 and see how that goes, it's probably a little high still but since I am not going to be doing custom sewing work I may have a little more time.

We have been getting a bunch of our shows watched while Jake is on vacation.  We watched all of the 3rd series of Misfits, all of Terra Nova, we have 1 episode left to be caught up to Once Upon a Time and we are going to get caught up with Grimm tonight and tomorrow.  We also have Cowboys and Aliens to watch tonight.  I am kind of in a Daniel Craig kind of mood so I am looking forward to that one!




Here is a little something I worked on this week when I felt the need to sew.  I am practicing blocks for the quilt I want to make in 2012.  This is a pillow top for Bailey, the picked the blocks and all the fabrics for each one.  I need to work on making sure my seam allowances are all 1/4" so that they are all the same size blocks.  We decided to do these wonky since they sizes were all a little off!  I still have to finish the back and get a pillow for it.  Now the boys have decided that they each need one too so they have picked out block styles.  I will probably work on them next week since I am going to be spending the next few days reading!

Ok, well I am going to get off here so I can watch Nathan Fillion on The Nerdist....

Have a great day!

Last Minute...

Today we will be trying to finish up our shopping.  It's so last minute!  We do this every year though and it's a pain, but what can you do?  I still haven't wrapped a single present either.  It's kind of a tradition to wait until Christmas Eve, we put the kids to bed and we wrap while we watch a movie.  We have Fright Night, so that will probably be this years movie.  It has Colin Farrell, David Tennant and Anton Yelchin so it better be good.  But, I am pretty easy to please when it comes to Vampire movies so I am sure I will like it!

I finished up my handmade gifts, I didn't end up doing some of what I had planned though.  I took a local custom job and I worked on that one day.  It was pretty simple, just putting a 2" hem in the top and bottom of a 13 yard length of felt for a local contractor.  I happened to be waiting behind him in line at the fabric cut counter at Joann last week when he was asking the cutting lady if she knew anyone local who could do it.  I gave him my card and got a simple custom job!  It was a lot up getting up and down to fiddle with the length of the fabric, it was a bit unwieldy, but I managed to get it done in just a couple hours.  So, back to my handmade gifts...I ended up making 3 tote bags and a rice filled heating pad.  I didn't get the pillow cases done, but with the kids home, it made doing it on the sly a little hard!  I will probably just make them next week.

I worked on this all day yesterday and I have it almost all put away!

I ended up with just this left in the house.  The bottom 2 tubs have my cotton fabric that I am going to  use for quilts in 2012 and the top tub has boxes of tools and hand stitching supplies and my notebooks, etc..  The bottom basket has my boxes of thread, tags and misc bobbins and stuff.  The top basket is full of the stuff I keep right by my machine all the time.  The pink box on the floor has some interfacing and stuff that's listed in my Etsy store.  The round basket is just full of misc. stuff that I can't decide where to put and the wire basket has my sewing and quilting books.

I put 4 HUGE (Like 60 - 80 gallon) tubs and 4 smaller (40 gallon) tubs in the garage.  All my decorator weight fabric and misc cotton and all my other supplies are in them.  I labeled them all so I can find things easily if I need them.  I have my machine packed into its rolling case for now and I just have to decide where to put this stuff when I am not using it!  I threw away 2 trash bags of decorator weight scraps and I have a big tub plus a full shopping bag full of scraps that I am dropping off to a friend today!

I am gearing up for 2012 and working on my sewing goals for the year.  I will tell you this, I had goals for 2011 and I didn't complete most of them!  Most of that is due to the fact that I was so busy with custom work that I didn't have time to sew for myself.  2012 is going to be the year of sewing for fun!  The girls (Heather, Amanda, Lisa, Nikki) and I are going to be working on some fun stuff.  Heather scoped out the books for us and we decided on this one, The Civil War Diary Quilt.  I think it's going to be a good learning experience for me to work on this kind of project.  I want to work on this through out the year and I also want to work on blocks for a quilt like this one.   It's called a Japanese + and x quilt.  I am pretty excited to get to work on it too!

Well, I have TONS to do today and a family Christmas party tonight so I better run.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!!

I promised pictures!

I got my fleece yesterday afternoon so I have lots of work to do today, but I wanted to post some pictures of the things I finished up last week.